Donald Maass Literary Agency

Scientific American: In Seth Dickinson’s 2015 debut novel, The Traitor Baru Cormorant, a fiercely willful woman from a colonized island plots her revenge against a brutal empire. This fascination with weighing the value of specific lives against a greater good also powers his new book, a mind-shredding first-contact epic. A spaceship or weapon or something has appeared in Kurdistan, where its mysteries get puzzled over by a sprawling cast. There are nukes, alien brain locks, intergalactic warfare and a scope that […]

Author of LONG PAST DUES, James J. Butcher sold two new novels in the Unorthodox Chronicles, continuing the misadventures of Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby. To be released in 2025 and 2026. Executive Editor Anne Sowards at Penguin Random House / Ace acquired world rights in a six-figure deal negotiated by Jennifer Jackson.

Kirkus: For three teen competitors at the exclusive Bastille Invitational tennis tournament in Florida, there’s more at stake than the winner’s trophy. Taiwanese American Alice Wu arrives still reeling from the loss of her father, who was also her coach. Mixed with her grief is the betrayal she feels toward the rest of her family, who hid Baba’s illness so she could have a “normal” life as long as possible. Alice receives another shock when she discovers that she’s rooming […]

Shelf Awareness: A secret superweapon capable of wiping out entire populations tips a world into full warfare in the action-packed The Olympian Affair, second in the steampunk Cinder Spires series from Jim Butcher (The Aeronaut’s Windlass). Humanity has long lived in the Spires, high above the dangers of the planet’s surface. Fleets of airships sail among them, powered by ether and carrying out trade–and, of course, war. The Spire of Aurora’s armada has unleashed a new weapon that has completely destroyed […]

Library Journal: Veris Thorn once rescued a child from the rapacious Elmever Forest and knows better than to ever enter it again. But she’s forced to relive her nightmare when the equally rapacious Tyrant forces her back to the forest to rescue his adventurous children. Veris has one day to get them out before the Tyrant burns her village and the Elmever takes all their souls. But the Elmever wants the only thing from Veris that she can’t give, and […]

Audio rights to J.S. Fields’s THE ROSEWOOD PENNY, on an island plagued by feral pegasi, Marani’s unusual invulnerability make her the perfect bandit frontman, until she robs the carriage of Princess Nuria and finds her murdered mother’s comb, to Kim Budnick at Tantor Media, in an exclusive submission, for Space Wizard Science Fantasy by Katie Shea Boutillier. Audio rights to Jordan Werner’s THE WITCH AND THE OSTRICH, a novella about a newspaper-critic witch and a necromancer warlord turned into an […]

Italian rights to Jo Walton’s AMONG OTHERS, to Marco Rana at Edizione E/O, by Stefania Fietta at Donzelli Fietta, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure. Italian rights to C.L. Polk’s THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN, to Marco Rana at Edizione E/O, by Stefania Fietta at Donzelli Fietta, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Caitlin McDonald. Turkish rights to Melissa K. Roehrich’s LADY OF DARKNESS and LADY OF SHADOWS, to Ren Kitap, in a two-book deal, by Merve Öngen […]

Wall Street Journal: The world in this current timeline has been a bit bleak lately. Fortunately for readers of alternate futures, the writer Martha Wells has delivered to us a hyperblast of joy: another wonderfully delightful offbeat adventure of the artificial consciousness readers have come to know as Murderbot. The Murderbot Diaries started in 2017 with “All Systems Red” and reach their seventh installment with “System Collapse.” These compact, delightful stories are set in a downbeat future in which corporations control […]

New York Times: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera is the best book I’ve read all year. Protean, singular, original, it forces me to come up with the most baffling comparisons, like: What if “Disco Elysium” were written by Sofia Samatar? At the same time, all you need to know about it is contained in its opening: “The moment Fetter is born, Mother-of-Glory pins his shadow to the earth with a large brass nail and tears it from […]

The New York Times released their Best SFF Books of 2023 list, and huge congratulations to Vajra Chandrasekera and Martha Wells for making the list! The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera Witch King by Martha Wells